Reply To: Senator McSharry – defender of democratic purity

Originally posted by alan d
Diaspora, my old friend. It’s you who is missing the point.

The heritage perspective is being articulated, without regard to all the physical and tangible considerations that have to be considered. An Taisce, if they are going to be taken seriously by people like me have to know this and not bury their head in the sand

The developer needs to make money, unless An taisce can underwrite the work or public funds can be provided………. other wise they won’t do it and why should they?

Sorry I missed your later post……

But the way it would appear to work is a mix of the following, work being optional because a lot of the time there are decisions that are hard to understand.

1> Heritage considerations are a major factor particularly in regional town centres, it is the function of An Taisce to articulate this in the planning process.

2> Urban design quality is a major consideration and it is up to the architect to articulate this in the form of the drawings. Your scheme had this no question about it.

3> A certain level of construction activity is required to keep the economy turning, but I don’t feel that any particular developer has a right to build for this reason alone.

It is in my opinion a question of balancing the three factors above to get to the bigger picture.

Being completely honest you were treated very badly in Sligo, I have never heard of a ‘protected structure’ being protected whilst a planning application was being assessed.

I very much doubt that the owner of the site would have put forward this scheme had the ‘Teeling House’ been a protected structure when you were retained.

As the entire planning process in Ireland is quasi-legal the principle of ‘precedent’ is binding, it is for this reason that An Taisce would have objected.

Had the Councillors not listed the ‘Teeling House’ I think that your scheme would have been built. If it were not a protected structure I would have been happy to see your scheme built, because Sligo would have had a high quality building and no poorly executed copies would have followed. It would have raised the bar for any town centre development in Sligo.

I am also going to Sligo tonight for the weekend